If you are going to install KB938371

[cynthia]

If you are running AVG - close it down before installing this update. It gave me serious problems having it running.

And this update is a prefix before SP1. Makes you wonder what problems that installation will end up with...

Vista is for sure a hate and love system.

[Chewy]

you need to turn off any av before any updating of windows OS

SP3 RC2's for XP crashed computers running norton's utilities

[MilesAhead]

It does have its gotcha's

Vista is for sure a hate and love system.

It does have its gotcha's. Just for grins I made a customized command prompt loading DosKey and a bunch of macros. I didn't want it to take up space in the Taskbar so I made a copy of the shortcut, pasted it in the Startup folder and renamed it. Then I have a little AutoIt3 script to hide the Taskbar button. The renaming is to keep the shell from grouping buttons on open of another command prompt(which has the effect of unhiding the button.)

Anyway, this all works perfectly in XP. But in Vista, it insists on prepending "Administrator: " to whatever you named your prompt. So when another prompt opens named "Administrator: Command Prompt" the grouping kicks in unhiding my button and I end up with "C:\" in the Taskbar after the second prompt window closes. It wasn't broken!! Why did they fix it?

[doctorhardware]

You also may have to turn off any script blocking software also.

[MilesAhead]

Seems if HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\TaskbarGlomming

is set to 1 then you can adjust the grouping threshold with

HKEY_CURRRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\TaskbarGroupSize

valid values are rumored to be 2<=>10

Seems to work as expected. So far so good.

[blutach]

You continue to reinforce my belief that it was a good thing never to go near Vista.

Regards

[MilesAhead]

could be

You continue to reinforce my belief that it was a good thing never to go near Vista.

Regards

You could be right. Somebody once told me that an Operating System is at its most robust and powerful, just before its obsolescence. I think that's where XP is right now. Vista isn't so bad once you get past the first 2 weeks! Mainly it's turning off all that crap that works your HD that's the most annoying(at least in my experience. I'm sure people having driver problems have a different perspective.)

[Chewy]

I'm sure people having driver problems have a different perspective.

like the guy who added a hard drive to his computer and a ton of ram to dual boot vista with his xp, vista has no drivers for his motorola soft modem

[MilesAhead]

Yeah, the same cycles go 'round and 'round. I remember when CDROM and sound were first coming in there were these stupid sound effects when you did stuff on your machine. I mean really gaudy annoying stuff. There was a surcharge for this audio capability. I suggested they give it away free, but charge the surcharge to disable it!!! Of course now the stuff is subtler and I don't mind getting a little 'dink' sound when I click on something.. and of course we're all interested in video here. But it sure wasn't very impressive in the beginning. I think I paid $500 for a CDROM Drive because it was 2x... one of the fastest on the market at the time. Sheesh!!

[Chewy]

if i remember you got a creative isa sound card to run the durn things in the kit

[gonwk]

Hi folks,

@ Cynthia ... Great to see you on DD again ... you are my Lady for the BEST Guides ever written.

@ Miles, dude you are scaring me ... too Techy for me.

I found a source that I can still order a Laptop with XP SP2 ... yeahhh!!!

G!

[doctorhardware]

I still have have an upgrade coupon to vista, maybe I should auction the coupon on fleabay

[MilesAhead]

can't remember

if i remember you got a creative isa sound card to run the durn things in the kit

I think at that time there were only 2 brand name CDROMs on the market with 2x speed. One was Toshiba, which is the one I bought. I don't recall the other one. For $500 though I think a guy should've pulled up to my house in a limo and put the thing in for me! I had a no name case with like zero mechanical engineering invested in the design. If I had it to do over I would've gone with a PS/2 machine with Microchannel. I saw a guy change out the floppy drive. Push a button, flip open the front bezel, push a button, pull the floppy drive out. Push the new drive in until you hear a click. Close the bezel. Done. No tools, screws or cables. But at that time I thought it was important to have an ISA bus for max compatibility. Oh well.

[atifsh]

dontknow why ppl get trouble / or hate it, as iv never had any with vista that is more better now after sp1, yeah i changed the printer because my cardreader wont work on vista for older one but thats the only thing iv changed.
well file coping was annoying but was somwhat fixed earlier. sp1 has fixed it. iv waited 2 or 3 months for logitech to make drivers for my webcam. creative took ages to release somwhat better driver for audigy. but never had any major software problems.

i use pc for light gaming, web / chat / email / encoding / capturing / burning all works fine

yes i got 2 gb ram, yes i got lowerend c2d but that thing runs fine on my older P4

[infact my early days with XP was a nightmare mainly cause of drivers, and we were used to having less memory installed] xp changed that. then came early sata drives that got problems installing xp, i think sp1 fixed that.

some old memories http://www.computing.net/windowsme/w...rum/15749.html

[doctorhardware]

It is the drivers that make me crazy, having to load the drivers. It is always a new adventure. It will never load the same way twice a real pia.